The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008 American romantic fantasy drama film

 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American romanticfantasy drama film directed by David Fincher. The storyline by Eric Roth andRobin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name byF. Scott Fitzgerald. The film stars Brad Pitt as a man who ages in reverse andCate Blanchett as the love interest throughout his life.

The film was released in North America on December 25, 2008, and on February 6, 2009 in the United Kingdom, to positive reviews. The film went on to receive thirteen Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Fincher, Best Actor for Pitt and Best Supporting Actress for Taraji P. Henson, and won three, for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects.

In 2005, elderly Daisy Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital; she asks her daughter, Caroline, to read aloud from the diary of Benjamin Button. From the reading, we learn that on the evening of November 11, 1918, a boy is born with the appearance and physical maladies of an elderly man. The baby's mother died after giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button, abandons the infant on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie and Mr. "Tizzy" Weathers, workers at the nursing home, find the baby, and Queenie decides to care of him as her own.

Benjamin learns to walk in 1925; he declares it a miracle, after which he uses crutches in place of a wheelchair. On Thanksgiving 1930, Benjamin meets seven-year-old Daisy, whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. He and Daisy become good friends. Later, he accepts work on a tugboat captained by Mike Clark. Benjamin also meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. In Autumn 1936, Benjamin leaves New Orleans for a long-term work engagement with the tugboat crew; Daisy later is accepted into a dance company in New York City under choreographer George Balanchine.

In 1941, Benjamin is in Murmansk, where he begins having an affair with Elizabeth Abbott, wife of the British Trade Minister. That December, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, thrusting the United States into World War II. Mike volunteers the boat for the U.S. Navy; the crew is assigned to salvage duties. During a patrol, the tugboat finds a sunken U.S. transport and the bodies of many American troops. A German submarine surfaces; Mike steers the tugboat full speed towards it while a German gunner fires on the tugboat, killing most of the crew, including Mike. The tugboat rams the submarine, causing it to explode, sinking both vessels. Benjamin and another crewman are rescued by U.S. Navy ships the next day.

In May 1945, Benjamin returns to New Orleans and reunites with Queenie. A few weeks later, he reunites with Daisy; they go out for dinner. Upon failing to seduce him afterward, she departs. Benjamin later reunites with Thomas Button, who, terminally ill, reveals he is Benjamin's father and wills Benjamin his button company and his estate.

In 1947, Benjamin visits Daisy in New York unannounced but departs upon seeing that she has fallen in love with someone else. In 1954, Daisy's dancing career ends when her leg is crushed in an automobile accident in Paris. When Benjamin visits her, Daisy is amazed by his youthful appearance, but, frustrated by her injuries, she tells him to stay out of her life.

In spring 1962, Daisy returns to New Orleans and reunites with Benjamin. Now of comparable physical age, they fall in love and go sailing together. They return to learn that Queenie has died, then move in together. In 1967, Daisy, who has opened a ballet studio, tells Benjamin that she is pregnant; she gives birth to a girl, Caroline, in the spring of 1968. Believing he can not be a father to his daughter due to his reverse aging, Benjamin sells his belongings, leaves the proceeds to Daisy and Caroline, and departs the next spring; he travels alone during the 1970s.

Benjamin returns to Daisy in 1980. Now married, Daisy introduces him, as a family friend, to her husband and daughter. Daisy admits that he was right to leave; she could not have coped otherwise. She later visits Benjamin at his hotel, where they again share their passion for each other, then part once more.

In 1990, widowed Daisy is contacted by social workers who have found Benjamin—now physically a pre-teen. When she arrives, they explain that he was living in a condemned building and was taken to the hospital in poor physical condition, and that they found her name in his diary. The bewildered social workers also say he is displaying early signs of dementia. Daisy moves into the nursing home in 1997 and cares for Benjamin for the rest of his life. In the spring of 2003, Benjamin dies in Daisy's arms, physically an infant but chronologically 84 years of age. Daisy dies as Hurricane Katrina approaches.

CastBrad Pitt as Benjamin Button (adult), Caroline's biological father
Robert Towers as Benjamin Button (apparent adult)
Peter Donald Badalamenti II as Benjamin Button (apparent adult)
Tom Everett as Benjamin Button (apparent adult)
Spencer Daniels as Benjamin Button (apparent age 12)
Chandler Canterbury as Benjamin Button (apparent age 8)
Charles Henry Wyson as Benjamin Button (apparent age 6)
Cate Blanchett as Daisy Fuller (adult)
Elle Fanning as Daisy Fuller (age 7)
Madisen Beaty as Daisy Fuller (age 10)
Taraji P. Henson as Queenie
Julia Ormond as Caroline Fuller (adult), Benjamin and Daisy's daughter
Katta Hules as Caroline Fuller (age 12)
Shiloh Jolie-Pitt as Caroline Fuller (age 2)
Jason Flemyng as Thomas Button, Benjamin's father
Mahershalalhashbaz Ali as Tizzy Weathers
Jared Harris as Captain Mike Clark
Faune A. Chambers as Dorothy Baker
Elias Koteas as Monsieur Gateau, a blind clockmaker in a story Daisy tells Caroline
Ed Metzger as Theodore Roosevelt
Phyllis Somerville as Grandma Fuller
Josh Stewart as Pleasant Curtis
Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott
Bianca Chiminello as Daisy's friend
Rampai Mohadi as Ngunda Oti
Lance E. Nichols as Preacher